The 53-Year-Old Iditarod Champion, Who Beat His 25-Year-Old Son

There are few things better than becoming the oldest man to ever win the Iditarod Sled Dog Race, as 53-year-old Mitch Seavey did last night. But if there is just one sweeter thing, it's outracing your 25-year-old son Danny — who became the race's youngest victor last year — to do so.

Mitch won the nearly 1,000-mile race in 2004, too. But this time, he didn't own the lead till late in the race. He had to overcome and fend off four-time champion and former oldest winner, Jeff King (who got third) and Aliy Zirkle, a 43-year-old woman who came in second last year, as she did this year. The Anchorage Daily News, which has a great photo of Mitch celebrating with two of his ten dogs, described the turning point:

Patience paid off for [Mitch] on Monday, when he resisted the urge to follow when King blew through Koyuk [the fourth-to-last checkpoint] to temporarily claim the lead. Seavey stayed at the checkpoint for another three hours and was able to overtake King on the run to Elim.

He owned a 48-minute lead leaving Elim on Monday night, but Zirkle came on strong during the overnight run to White Mountain and sliced 35 minutes off his lead.

Seavey did himself no favors on that run — he twice fell asleep and fell off his sled, according a Facebook post by his son Danny Seavey.

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Heading into the final stretch, Zirkle left just 13 minutes after Mitch. Seavey kept on looking over his shoulder, seeing her in mirages. "I saw the raven Aliy; I saw the fuel tank Aliy; and the upside-down boat Aliy," Seavey told the Daily News. "I would continue to scare myself that she was catching up to me." But she couldn't make up the time. "That slippery sucker," she told the paper, "I couldn't catch him."

Mitch finished with a time of nine days, seven hours, and 39 minutes. Zirkle finished 24 minutes later. Then King. Then, two hours and 41 minutes after Mitch, came his son Danny.

He won $50,400, a new Dodge Ram pickup, and fatherly bragging rights forever. After the race, he declared, "This is for all the gentlemen of a certain age who think it ends at 50, 'cause it doesn't."